The National Children's Commissioner says some politicians have told her there are "no votes in children" when she has tried to raise the issue of youth justice.
Speaking at the National Press Club, Anne Hollonds said Australia must abandon its "tough on crime" approach - often pushed by conservative media and politicians - and start looking towards evidence-based solutions, including earlier intervention, in order to help save children from "disadvantage, despair and desperation".
Talking about her advocacy for children in the halls of Canberra, Commissioner Hollonds said many MPs didn't see the value in advocating for something that would fail to win them votes.
"The truth is, while we may all be shocked in the moment when there's a tragedy reported in the media – and there's just about every week – these serious failures and systemic neglect of children do not seem to affect a party's political fortunes at elections," she said.
"Despite the economic costs, and the questionable morality of strategies contrary to the evidence, when I ask about lack of progress on reform, I'm told by some members of Parliament there's no votes in children."
Jurisdictions across Australia have enacted punitive measures toward children, despite a significant swathe of evidence showing it fails the community.
In NSW, the government accepted new bail laws would see more children incarcerated, but enacted them regardless; whilst in Victoria, the government gave in to attacks by police sources in the media, as well as the Herald Sun, and dropped their commitment to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14-years-of-age.
Last year, Queensland twice suspended the Human Rights Act – to criminalise youth breaches of bail and house children in adult watch houses – and the opposition have vowed to go even harder, with their "adult crime, adult time" pre-election mantra.
Speaking on Wednesday, Commissioner Hollonds said youth detention centres in Australia were "places where the most egregious breaches of the human rights of children are happening".
"What was most chilling for me was to meet children who had no-one, who were completely alone, who spoke of feeling shut out and shunned by society," she said.
"These children were unable to tell me about any hopes or dreams or plans for the future. All they could see in their future was more of the same but in adult prison. Barely literate, their lack of education or training gave them no prospects for a job, and they had no-one to help them.
"The light had gone out of their eyes."
Arguing the country can't continue its "business as usual" pathway, the commissioner stated: "After the child protection system, often the next station on the train line for them is the criminal justice system."
She called for a cabinet minister for children, as well as the establishment of a ministerial council for child wellbeing that reports to the national cabinet, before arguing whilst Australia had ratified the convention on the rights of the child in 1990, unlike other countries, no legislation exists to enable the responsibilities "we have signed up to".
"There is currently no-one held responsible for example, when the conditions in detention are breaching international human rights conventions," Commissioner Hollonds said.
"And this was made clear at a recent inquest into the tragic death by suicide of young Cleveland Dodd."
Cleveland, a 16-year-old Yamatji boy, died in WA's notorious Unit 18 last year.
The resulting inquest into his death has seen department heads and politicians criticised for lying, politicising youth justice, and a failure to support some of the state's most vulnerable children.
Commissioner Hollonds argued human rights as a concept for children was "not well understood" in Australia, stating you never hear about their children's rights "talked about in Question Time or on the news".
"But you'll hear about workers' rights, women's rights, consumer rights, for example," she said.
"The term children's rights…it doesn't really roll off the tongue, does it, in Australia? And that helps to explain why we continue to see breaches of human rights, and in [the] child justice system.
"It's getting worse, not better, and it has to stop."
